But it was too intense a relationship for either of them, and they had a difficult breakup in junior year. They had still not spoken when Rebecca left to study education at New York University and Mike departed for film school at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Then, a few months in, one called the other. They can't remember who picked up the phone, or why, but by their second year of grad school, they were talking almost daily, about everything. On weekends, they would talk for six hours straight.
"We were not dating," Rebecca said. "It was a very intimate relationship through conversation."
There were a few cross-country visits, but it was only when graduation approached that they tried to figure out what it all meant. The answer "horrified" those closest to them, Rebecca said.
Mike and Rebecca decided he would move to New York - and into her apartment, just south of Harlem.
"All our friends and family were like, 'But you're not dating! You can't move in together!' " she said.
Rebecca flew to California that June, and she and Mike drove East with all of his things.
How does forever sound?
Soon after graduation, Rebecca, now 28, began teaching high school English at New Heights Academy Charter School. Mike, now 27, became an administrator for the theater and urban studies departments at Barnard College of Columbia University.
Eighteen months later, Mike secretly told his parents, Scott and Shelley, that he planned to propose. He ordered a ring.
On the day the ring arrived in January 2010, Mike was anxiously awaiting Rebecca's return from work when she called to say she was stopping to pick up worms for Natasha, their bearded dragon.
Natasha has plenty of worms, Mike said. Still, when Rebecca got home, he asked her to look in on the reptile. "What is she giving to you there?" he asked. "What is that box doing in there?"
